1 day and 1 hour (under) away from my birthday. had the big important band rehearsal last night... and the rehearsal space was as usual quite charming... we dealt with it... but man... when you say you're gonna have an 88 note weighted keyboard and then it turns out to be a 61 note Korg M1... give me a break.

in other late breaking news, marc has been asked to write and record with the a prominent canadian band this month. it's a really great opportunity for him and we're crossing our fingers that it won't conflict with the tuesday night residency. it looks like there might be one week that could be a problem... so we're considering options (ie: someone to fill in for marc) if he has to be out of town with this other group. i'm really happy and excited for him, but it puts a little bit of stress on my plate. marc has been a really big part of the live shows, and while this month may still work out fine, there may be a future coming up where he's on the road with this band and i need to find a more permanent solution.

oh, if only we were busy touring the world so i could keep him from all other bands! *evil laugh* :)

well, i haven't given up on that yet.


so back to my birthday. 1 day and 30 min away. i still like birthdays.

WHAT A WEEK.... the cd's arrived! i have boxes of "out here at sea" in my apartment, and the cover art turned out really really well.... as good or better than i had hoped it would. yay! marc said he had an "oprah moment" when he saw the cd for the first time yesterday. i wasn't there at the time, but i wish i had been... i wonder what that would have looked like.

to add to that excitement, yesterday was the big long awaited mastering day for the record i've produced for Tamara Podemski. It was really great seeing that project coming to completion... and sounding fantastic also. i've been so involved with that record, like a parallel universe to my own, because i also co wrote some of the songs on the record as well as played on them. I also gave Tamara permission to record a song i had written awhile back, called "crack in the floor", and seeing it come together was so rewarding... she sang the crap out of it!! yesterday as we were putting down the master of that song, it brought tears to my eyes... like the culmination of so much that i've been putting my heart and soul into... such an overwheming feeling. now in addition to having my own brand new cd, i have my first outside production project completed... seeing my name as "producer" on her studio master was so cool. yes, i'm all about the glory. lol!!! ps: did i mention, she thinking of calling the record "Crack In The Floor", after my song?

*tickled pink*

there's an intimacy in shared laundry. it's one of those unconcious things that happens. roommates don't combine laundry, but bedmates do. families combine laundry. when is the moment of change when you begin to combine laundry? is this the litmus test of intimacy? The Laundry Factor. The Laundry Intimacy Indicator.

caught a 24 hour bug and was in bed yesterday. finished the 4th season of the West Wing and watched way too many badly written contrived psychic-female-cop dramas on CTV. i miss law and order.

been listening to DJ Shadow and Photek lately. Friday is our day with the mastering studio to master Tamara's record. Nice to see it coming to completion. My birthday is in 2 weeks. My CD's will be back from the factory really soon. I'm waiting for the call. waiting for the call.

it's my brother's 18th birthday on Monday and i wish i could be there to take him out for drinks.

don't wanna jinx it, but i've been on a bit of a writing streak the last couple of days. no jinx. no jinx.

better blow it off now with some margaritas. my experience tells me that it's not good to get too serious at a time like this.

i'm testing out a possible management situation. what i mean is... i've found someone that i think is cool and we're doing a little trial run to see what we work like together. i've never had a manager before and i'm so happy to be on my way to possibly having one. however, being that it's my first time with this... i find i'm just so not used to finally having the time to be an artist. things that i would normally be spending hours on by myself are now being worked on and i have my hands free - and i have to admit it's a bit disorienting after 8 years of doing it all on my own. :) I get to finally focus on being an artist! I'm not completely alone!

speaking of artistry... i was thinking yesterday about how the "masses" tend to use music... it's become such a commodity and some would say that it's resulted in a majority of people who tend to use music like a drug. They want their fix the way they like it, when they like it. The industry has been built to cater to this, trying to put out "products" that are exactly what these people are looking for... no surprises. (no alarms either). what came first, the chicken or the egg?

"what type of music do you play?" i think this is the hardest question in the world, if you're any sort of authentic artist. as an artist, i tend to want to play with different sounds... as a songwriter, i have written in a lot of different styles. my ears hear something i want to play with and i play. over the years my styles and influences have changed, and they will probably continue to - to do otherwise would start to feel artistically stagnant. "who do you sound like?" much much worse.

many actors try to stay away from getting typecast as one certain type of character all the time, to be well rounded and versatile. musicians are encouraged to slot neatly into a genre that the record store can handle.

thank god not everyone is like this, or i'd give up right now.

actually, i don't think i could.

we were invited to come into the studio at the Harris Institute and record a song for a compilation CD that the management students are putting out to raise money for breast cancer research. (the harris institute is a music business school in toronto.) the song's called "always been kind" and i wrote it while i was writing and recording the new record, but it never made it into the track listing. special thanks to matt for stopping in and helping out with some tech stuff!

i've really gotten into watching curling this past week... i never thought i'd say that! the men's world championship has been on CBC a lot and i'm finding myself following the games and checking scores online too... marc says we should try curling sometime. so between the curling and the ultimate frisbee that we're also considering, we're going to be two sporty musicians! lol...

i'm getting very excited about the upcoming tuesday night residency at c'est what. it will feel so good to be playing with a drummer again. It's going to be a trio "lineup" featuring our new drummer Ben Riley, master of beatz and eater of meat. :)